Liner companies need to throw out the rulebook

Speaking at this week’s Navis World, Mr Widdows told delegates that mid-sized liner operators could throw out the rulebook and think more laterally about how to close the gap with the industry forerunners, Maersk and MSC.

He suggested that alliances such as the G6 should consider operating a common fleet of containers, sharing documentation and developing one intermodal company to tackle landside inefficiencies.

“The biggest opportunity is how to co-operate on the landside,” he said, conceding that all of these changes will take a significant change of mindset. “What if lines went down the road of deeper collaboration?” he asked.

Without these changes he warned that there will “only be incremental improvement but no fundamental change”.